Which springs might mean big things?

I wrote a few weeks ago about one piece of spring training performance that can help us spot genuine improvement: slugging percentage. Basically, baseball researcher John Dewan found that “a hitter with a positive difference between his spring training slugging percentage and his lifetime slugging percentage of .200 or more correlates to a better than normal season.” At the time, a number of Angels -- including Brandon Wood -- fit into this category, albeit in tiny at-bat samples.

How about after another two weeks? Here are the Angels* who stayed above the Dewan line:

Erick Aybar: .784 spring**, .348 career

Kendry Morales: .663 spring, .408 career

Brandon Wood: .679 spring, .317 career

Jeff Mathis: .714 spring, .326 career

Torii Hunter: .778 spring, 468 career

Matt Brown: .756 spring, N/A

This obviously doesn't mean all (or any) of these guys are going to carry this success over into the regular season. But if you're looking for reasons to be optimistic, fold this up and put it in your pocket.

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